Green and Black Roses
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [AT] Carly comes to Neo Domino City for her job. The fruits of her search is a probation: find out the identity of the Black Rose Witch and she's hired. Easy, right? Except the reason she's got this task is because nobody else cares to get that close to the Witch or to the movement behind her. And that's only part of Carly's troubles in surviving in this city.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge at the Duel Monsters Writing Academy Forum (link in profile), j26 - write an alternate timeline fic.

* * *

 **Green and Black Roses  
** _Chapter 1_

Carly was feeling bored, but the stubborn streak inside her wasn't willing to bow over just for that. It might have other ideas once the money ran out, but at the moment she was parked under Mr Pitts' window, honking her car horn every now and then, and waiting until he hired her – or called Security to get rid of her.

Three days ago, she'd been amazed they hadn't come to tow her away, car and all. But that was three days ago. Before she realised why she'd drawn Nightmare Steelcage from her deck that morning. Before she'd run out of old newspapers to read and was wishing she'd gone apartment hunting instead of job hunting – but the job came first. And before she'd tired of having packaged food and running to the public restrooms whenever she needed to use the loo. And before she'd tired of the sound of her own horn. But she was at her wit's end. No reputable newspaper wound hire her without credentials and she couldn't get credentials without a job. This place had shown a bit more promise, considering they were small and often printed what some locals called "the dirty little secrets of Neo Domino". Mostly conspiracy theories, but people read them, and laughed about the stories, and that was good enough for her.

Except the manager claimed he had enough staff and didn't even consider her.

So she'd sat back in her car and started tooting the horn. And when he'd poked his head out to yell, she set her ultimum. 'Give me a job and I'll stop!'

He hadn't given her a job. So she didn't stop. Some passing citizens gave her dirty looks but they were near the shipyard. That made a lot of noise in and of itself. Maybe, Carly mused, that was why her method wasn't working – and three days was enough to know it wasn't working. She simply wasn't being annoying enough.

 _How to be more annoying?_

Her eyes scanned the building. She could scale the wall and tap on his window. Or knock on the door until it fell down.

The door first, she decided. She could think of a few creative ways to go about it, none of which were likely to work. But it was still fun to imagine.

So she relocated to the door, bringing a supply of snacks and one of the worn newspapers with her. And she knocked. Mr Pitts opened the door, noticed her, and slammed it again. She kept knocking. And when she tired, she kicked. Then she sat down and kicked, this time with her heels. 'I'll go as soon as you give me a job,' she called. 'Just a little one. Or even something big. I'm not picky.'

Someone came up behind her and knocked. The door didn't open. 'Who are you?' he asked Carly, who was by then lying on her stomach crunching a bag of chips.

'Nagisa Carly,' Carly replied. 'I'm waiting for a job.'

He raised an eyebrow at her. She flushed a little, but said: 'I'm a little desperate.'

'You're the one who's been honking their car horn for three days?'

'Yep, that'd be me.'

The man shook his head. 'That'd be desperate.' Then he cleared his throat. 'Mr Pitts? I've got the article you wanted.'

The door opened, he disappeared through, and closed before Carly could get through it. She scowled. 'Thanks a lot!' she yelled at the other guy – a reporter, probably. A rival. Or something like that. He could have helped her in at least.

But he came out half an hour later with Mr Pitts trailing behind. 'Get in then,' he said grudgingly, looking displeased at the crumbs scattered but saying nothing of it. And Carly had visited the loo in the foyer when she needed it, but hadn't bothered cleaning up after herself in the meantime. If it was her car, she would, but she considered the mess the price for making her wait – and undercharged at that.

'Kids today have no manners,' the man muttered, moustache quivering as he opened a filing cabinet and rifled through. Carly was half wondering if the job he had in mind was cleaning the place up (and it could certainly use some organising) before he tossed a thick manila folder at her. 'Consider that your trial.'

Carly blinked, trying to stop herself from dancing about in joy and focusing on the actual task. 'The Black Rose Witch?' Sounded like something from occult. Then again, some of the kids from school would say the same about her deck. Even though her cards could be interpreted in a myriad of ways. Like today's fortune, for example. Fortune Lady Hu. Said today would be "not so bad" and yet she was ecstatic inside.

 _A chance! Finally!_

Then again, Fortune Lady Hu said her lucky item was a plant, and there was a rose in the label. A black rose, albeit, which sounded more macabre than lucky – but it was something she was supposed to dig out of the soil either way.

Mr Pitts seemed to almost smirk as he watched her. 'Too frightening for you?'

'Of course not.' In truth, she had no idea what or who the Black Rose Witch was. But she'd find out. And no way was she going to miss this chance even if she _was_ scared. 'I'll take this.' She flicked through a few pages. Articles of duels, photos of a figure in a black cloak, more articles. 'What do I do?' she asked. 'An interview?'

The man laughed and sat back down at his desk. 'Find out who she is,' he replied, sounding amused. 'If you can get an interview tossed in, go right ahead.' And he waved her off thereafter.

Carly assumed the laugh meant it wouldn't be as simple as dialling a number and asking. But she didn't mind. A challenge was always fun, and always made her feel like she was working for her pay. Except she wouldn't get paid until she had some dirt to hand over. Which meant she still had to deal with the money problem.

And since she had a probation all lined up in the newspaper industry, she figured she should look for something more…temporary.

She tucked the folder safely under a suitcase in the back seat and slipped into the driver's. 'Where to go?' she said thoughtfully to herself, tapping the steering wheel. She was careful not to touch the horn. She'd had enough of that, and she was sure Mr Pitts had as well. Maybe a supermarket? They always wanted hands to stock shelves and stuff, right? But no dice. They wanted people who looked pretty – poster boys and girls who added to the décor. Wasn't her sort of thing anyway. She tried fast food places. They said they had enough hands and they'd probably chase her with a red hot spatula if she tried to honk her way into a position. And she wasn't that desperate.

Well, she needed _a_ job. Just not necessarily that sort of job.

She chatted with people anyway. Asked them where good places to get jobs where, and good places to get the gossip of the town. She didn't ask about the Black Rose Witch. She needed to read the papers she had first. Just in case it was one of those top-profile things. She didn't want the Public Security on her tail _now_ after all.

She camped out another night in her car. The next morning she yawned, stretched out a crick in her neck, and decided she really needed to sort out the money issue before she ran out of fuel. Because food was one thing, but fuel was another thing entirely. Expensive. And she needed enough for a deposit on a cheap apartment once she was sure she could pay the rent.

'Give me a good fortune today,' she pleaded with her deck, shuffling the cards. Their worn backs smiled up to her and finally she stopped, and flipped the top card. 'Infinite Cards?' She blinked. Sleep and fatigue both clung to her eyes. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

It didn't necessarily mean anything. The easiest fortunes to work out were her Fortune Fairies, and only rarely did the others make sense. Nightmare Steelcage was one of the rare ones…though she might've done things differently if she'd known she was going to sit there for three days, honking her horn. Or maybe she wouldn't have. There hadn't been any other newspapers to try. There were other places in general though.

Unfortunately, that wasn't going so well. Until she got to a bar called Bootleg. 'A job?' the bartender laughed. 'You haven't quite got the face for here. Too…youngish.'

A slightly different comment than from the supermarkets, but no more helpful. 'Any ideas then?' she asked. 'Unset hours preferred.'

The man glanced around, then gestured her in. 'You might try the underground,' he whispered to her over the squeaks of him polishing wine glasses. 'If you're any good at duelling, I mean. And don't mind…uhh…sneaking through channels, as it is.'

'Underground,' Carly mused thoughtfully. Sounded like a good place to get scoops as well. She wasn't too sure about the duelling part. She'd have to check it out, to see if someone with mediocre talent could make a pretty penny over there. 'Where can I find this place?'

Maybe that's what Infinite Cards had been trying to tell her. There were a bunch of cards in its picture.

Or maybe, as her family always said, she was reading too much into them again. It wasn't like the cards guided anything aside from her mood. But it was something she did every day without fail nonetheless.


	2. Chapter 2

**Green and Black Roses  
** _Chapter 2_

The directions she'd received were a tad confusing but she'd managed with them. After all, in her line of work one needed to be able to find the treasure with a treasure map, even if the treasure map was a blank piece of paper. So foggy directions weren't too bad. At least they didn't lead her too far off track. At least she found the place.

It was pretty run down for a place in the city, she thought. Kind of looked like that old factory near her hometown. The haunted one, thought the ones who did the haunting were in fact wild animals taking roost in a place humans didn't often tread. Except this joint was haunted by something different. By desperate people. By people addicted to the thrill. By the people who came to watch – and anyone in between who didn't really mind getting on the wrong side of the law.

She spent a couple of hours just eavesdropping on the duellists and on the observers. They had a wealth of information about the city. A lot of names, a lot of faces. She wouldn't remember them all. And since she was still in the induction phase, she wouldn't need to remember them all either. If they turned out to be relevant later on, she was pretty confident that her brain would remind her.

Once she felt she'd observed enough and could make a bit of a profit, she approached the man handling the bids. Her first risk was a minor one, and she didn't get much winnings in return but she got confidence and a bit of a buffer. It was slow. It was risky. It wasn't making her much unless she wanted to risk losing it all and it wasn't a job at all. And she wasn't duelling for it. But some of the people in the underground duelling arena looked lethal, and she wasn't planning on duelling them at all.

But she didn't need to wait idly waiting for the ones she felt she could handle to become free. It was another way of playing the field, of observing, of dipping the fingers into the batter to make sure it had the right consistency and the right flavour.

And then one of her targets was free and she threw in her challenge, and got it.

She didn't commonly duel, but she knew how. She watched duels often enough, recorded them on camera, listened to their play by play afterwards and the pride in their voices. It was that which brought her here: the chance to watch and write about bigger duels, bigger duellists – the duellists at the top of the country that many growing up in all corners of the globe read about and saw and smiled. The sorts of duellists like Mutou Yugi and Jonouchi Katsuya and Kaiba Seto who saved the world and got into adventures in the process. She wanted to be a writer like Kawaii Shizuka – but she lacked the advantage of having a big brother in the big leagues.

Technically, she didn't have a brother at all, but that was beside the point. She did have a deck. And enough cash to hopefully pay the penalty off if she lost. Not that she was planning to lose. She was all for risks and all, but not when necessities depended on it. She'd tucked a couple of notes into her bra anyway, just in case. She needed something to risk for more money later. And for food.

That didn't turn out to be a problem. She did lose duels, but not that one. And when she did lose, it wasn't badly. The penalty wasn't overwhelming. It scared her a bit when she learnt what would happen if she ever lost in the first turn, but for the weeks that followed, she was able to make enough for renting out a studio apartment in the cheapest part of town and get running water too.

She didn't bother with the gas. She could survive without it. The electricity was a problem she planned on tackling in the near future, but that could wait until she nailed her induction. Until then, power points in the library and take-outs for the food worked well enough.

 **.**

It was a couple of days after finding the underground before she cracked open the file case she'd been given. It had been nagging her all that time as well, but she had to be reasonable. She couldn't expect to get a job done if she'd be forced to camp out in her car for months. A week was bad enough and once again she had to thank her lucky stars she hadn't been booked for it.

Or maybe that was more to do with Fortune Fairy Hikari. She'd drawn her on the day she'd set out and that had been the best good omen she could ask for. Though the wishes _were_ taking a bit of a roundabout way towards getting fulfilled. She did have a way of making money, but it was pretty risky. It was even an adventure, but that hadn't been the sort of adventure she'd had in mind. And she had an article to write, but it wasn't her job. Instead, it was the ticket to her job.

Still, she took what she had and grew with it, so she flipped through the articles.

They were rather strange, and she had to reread the first couple before she believed what she'd read. Or, rather, she believed that holograms destroying property was what the witnesses saw. There had to be something beneath that. Normal holograms didn't do that after all. Not even in the underground where the spectators who thirsted for blood would've had a blast with.

Turned out the girl in the cloak in those images was the Black Rose Witch. The photos weren't particularly clear. Carly could make out two long locks of hair and a mask, but not the colour nor the pattern nor anything that would differentiate it from, say, herself if she put on a cloak and mask.

And there weren't any better photos in the rest of the papers. Nor was there a hint as to her identity – or if she even was a girl. Some boys had long hair after all. Or it could be a wig under the mask. She'd need to get a closer look before she could work any of it out.

But the pictures of her – it was easier to call her a female until proven otherwise – were clearer. There was a dragon in black scales and pink, almost red, petals. She'd never heard of it before but the name was printed: Black Rose Dragon. And then there were other plant monsters. Weak ones with handy effects. And more powerful ones. And one that wasn't even a monster. She had a list of ten cards once she was done. It showed how little the articles focused on the actual duels, otherwise she could have worked out the entire deck from those articles.

That settled it. The first order of business would be to observe her, and find defining pictures and more details about the deck. And whatever caused her monsters to become solid when nobody else's were – or the illusion to that. That was always possible too.

And to do that, she'd need to work out what areas got hit more frequently, and start hanging out at them. She'd have to buy a map for that – and plan her visits to the Underground more carefully, to give her as much free time as possible.

 **.**

She needed a bit of luck. She always sought some, before going out to find a story, and this time was no different. Except it was a much more important story. It would make her career if she wrote it, if she cracked the mystery of the Black Rose Witch that lay buried amongst some articles.

To her surprise, she drew out Royal Magical Library. She'd been hoping for one of the Fortune Fairies. Better yet, one of the low level ones because they had the most luck. Royal Magical Library was support for her deck, not a headliner… But it did have "library" in the name. Maybe that was a hint to do some more study first.

She considered, then assented. Searching on the library computers couldn't hurt. There might be more articles. More likely, there'd be things like chat rooms exploring the mystery girl and her duels. Theories which may be far or close to the truth. There were some strange ones. They linked her to real witches back in the day, to a priestess (who'd been on the other end of that war), to magicians from Ancient Egypt reincarnated, to a psychic. All of them would require some pretty hefty proof before she believed. After all, the king of games was said to have housed an Egyptian Pharaoh in his body but that still wasn't universally believed. They were all possible, she supposed. They all said she had some special power to make the duel spirits come to life.

And then there were the theories that spoke of government plots and plots from Satellite to plots from some dissident fraction attempting to overthrow Neo Domino City.

In other words, they gave her more questions than answers. She made notes anyway. who knew when she'd stumble across some piece of evidence to prove or disprove those theories?

The next stop was seeing this Black Rose Witch with her own eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

**Green and Black Roses  
** _Chapter 3_

Finding the Black Rose Witch turned out to be quite easy. She was quite the popular duellist, even if people cowered from challenging her. She wasn't an official part of the Underground duelling ring, but bets were made on her anyway. Not on whether she won or not, but rather on how long it took for her opponent to lose.

Or try and run in terror, and Carly wondered if that was perhaps too cruel. But it wasn't. It was a fact. Carly followed a few others to a duel that had started up outside the dingy bar. There was quite a number of people there, once the news had spread that a duel had begun. People were eager to watch – some terrified, but all eager. Few of them seemed willing to duel, however.

And Carly saw first-hand why. And why the spectators had a right to fear while simply watching. Those articles hadn't been embellishing. Misunderstanding perhaps – though she couldn't say that with much bravado until she found out exactly _how_ those cards were so real. But they were solid. When Twilight Rose Knight swung his sword, the sign in front of the bar fell over, the poster covering it slashed through. When Gallant Angel – Queen of Rose swung hers: longer, shinier and whiter – the wall shuddered and a few bricks came loose and fell with a clatter to the ground. When Black Rose Dragon appeared in a gale of pink petals that Carly had barely a breath to admire and roared her arrival, the wall fell with a crash that made Carly's teeth shatter and many spectators scream and back away.

And when she attacked, people fled, because the bricks were whipped up in a gale and tossed at the crowd. Many dashed into the bar. The Black Rose Witch turned her masked face towards the doorway. Carly inched away. The other wall was swaying slightly, otherwise she would have climbed it. She could duck into the alleyway though. There had to be a wall or an exit at its end.

So she did. Nobody followed her. Nobody even glanced in her directions and the bricks were pelting the open doorway of the bar, causing the barman, who'd pretended he wasn't peeking at the duel until then, to yell profanities. The figure in the cloak simply removed her cards from the duel disk, one by one. Black Rose Dragon was the last and it received a gentle caress before it was shuffled in with the rest. It was a caring action, unlike the cold cutting force she'd been in the duel. And that said nothing about whatever caused the sign to topple over, whatever caused the wall to break. Explosives could explain the wall. But what would explain the sign, she wondered? It would have to be a damn good sniper. Her fingers itched to go explore, but the Black Rose Witch was still there, surveying the now empty street.

No, that wasn't true at all. There was the opponent still there too. On the ground. Possibly unconscious, otherwise he might have run as well. He'd certainly lost. His life point counter was at zero and his cards had toppled from their holder. Carly wondered if the Black Rose Witch would snatch up those cards, or step on them. There were cruel people in the world. But someone who touched their own cards so gently surely wouldn't.

She didn't. She simply brushed her left arm, then turned and disappeared round a corner. One day, Carly would follow. One day, but not on the first occasion. She had a scene to inspect first.

And inspect she did, but she found nothing except what was right in front of her face. After she'd dragged the unconscious guy to her car and checked him over. He hadn't hit his head by the looks of things. There wasn't any cuts or blood anyway. But bruises didn't appear that fast and Carly was no doctor. She'd try to wake him up in a bit. If he didn't wake up himself.

He was awake and blinking at the car when she returned. 'Am I being erased?' he asked.

'What?' Carly replied, bemused. 'I just saw you unconscious after your duel and thought it'd be better if you weren't lying amongst all those bricks and out front of the bar.'

'Oh.' The boy's eyes flickered about, taking in her car.

Carly looked herself, hoping she hadn't left any underwear out to dry or something like that. She shouldn't have. She wasn't moving too far from her little place for this assignment, after all. and there wasn't, though there were ramen cups and sushi packets and other little things she hadn't had time to clean up. 'Sorry about the mess,' she said sheepishly. 'This is kind of my office away from home.' _I'm a reporter,_ she was about to add, but what was a reporter without a job? It was technically her test date. 'Uhh…I'm curious about the Black Rose Witch. All those rumours about her being able to cause real damage…'

'Not rumours.' The boy was looking at her now, at her striped shirt with the vest thrown on top, and the three quarter pants she was wearing to go with them. He rubbed his arms with a wince when she spoke though. 'Rumours didn't toss me into that wall.'

Somehow, Carly had missed that. Maybe it was the sudden pandemonium when everyone was trying to escape the flying bricks. Luckily, she'd parked her car out of the way. It was sturdy, but she wasn't sure if it could handle flying bricks fuelled with…something.

'So what made you challenge her?' Carly asked curiously, sliding into the driver's seat. 'And can I give you a ride somewhere? The hospital?' She hadn't been there before, but it was sort of hard to miss. Hospitals generally were. 'Or your house if you're sure you're not too badly banged up.'

'My place,' the boy said after a pause. He looked down at himself. 'If it's not any trouble,' he said hastily. 'It's not far; I can walk –'

'Nonsense,' Carly said crisply. 'You're sitting in my car after all.' And she had questions to ask. 'So…the duel?'

'Well…' The boy shrugged. 'She's the best, you know.'

'Jack Atlas is the best,' Carly said, confused. 'Or, well, in Neo Domino anyway. The world rankings put –'

'Jack Atlas's too high on his horse to duel us commonplace people,' the boy interrupted. 'The Black Rose is as good as we can get, unless we're invited to some prestigious tournament like the Fortune Cup or the Grand Prix.'

'So…' Carly slowly processed that. It made sense, of course. 'I take it you're a good duellist in your…uhh…niche.' She was trying not to be insulting. But bluntness came with the job. Or lack thereof. 'So you challenged the Black Rose Witch to see how strong you were?'

'Something like that,' the boy muttered, reciting directions after that. Carly followed diligently, taking a note of the address once she arrived. Of course, it was an apartment building and she couldn't tell which apartment it was, but at least she had the general area in case she needed to follow up something afterwards. But before that…

'You sure you're alright?' she asked a final time, watching him wince as he got out of the car. 'Apart from your pride, I mean.'

'I'm fine.' He sounded a little waspish now. Carly knew the tone. She'd been around enough boys in her life to recognise the ire that followed defeat.

'And any clues about how she made her attacks se – ' She corrected herself, 'so real?'

He shrugged. 'It makes for a good show until you feel it.'

Carly watched him leave. He wasn't limping, nor was there any blood anywhere on him. Maybe it'd been a simple case of fainting. Or maybe he hit his head and was fine now. in any case, she couldn't drag him to a doctor of he didn't want to go and when they weren't bleeding all over the place or outwardly struggling, she had no reason not to believe them when they said they were fine. It could even be like roughhousing, she mused. Maybe that was part of the appeal in challenging the Black Rose Witch.

Of course, she was going to play it safe for the moment. If safe was staking out a masked duellist who'd knocked down a wall in a duel and making money enough to manage an apartment with underground duelling and betting, but a girl had to do what a girl had to do, right? And she was pretty good at betting too. Came with observing, and observing came with the job, or the job-to-be, or maybe just with the dream – Carly wasn't too fussed about what to call it, because it'd all be the same in the end. Hopefully.

She wondered if she'd inched a little closer to the goal. And how many more inches she had to cover. Her fingers itched. It wasn't like she had a timeline to her probation, but a timeline helped to put things into perspective. She could set her own one but she had no idea how involved it would be, how difficult. Her own deck was a weight on her hip and she fingered the cards, their well worn edges. They did often give her hints, or nudges. She couldn't say how well they worked out since she didn't know the alternative in most cases, but they worked. They nudged her to leave the nest, to make a move when a stalemate grew stale, to consider things she might otherwise overlook…

She pulled out a card. Threatening Roar. It looked like she'd be playing it safe – relatively safe anyhow – for a bit, yet.

 _Watch and wait_ , Carly thought to herself as she drove back to her own apartment. _And see what everyone else had to say about this duel._


	4. Chapter 4

**Green and Black Roses  
** _Chapter 4_

Blogs were what she used to do so she had a good mindset for them. And there were plenty of blogs on street duels and conspiracies and many of them featured the Black Rose Witch. A few were even dedicated to her.

She toyed with the idea of setting up her own – or hijacking one of the ones already out there. That would involve finding the authors outside of cyberspace and meeting with them though. But the more she thought about it, the more it sounded like an idea that could possibly bear some fruit. If those blogs were dedicated solely to the Black Rose Witch, there must be a reason behind it. Extreme fascination to the point of obsession, attempting to glorify her and spread her image – or dig out the truth behind that image. And even an obsessive fan would have greater insight than a passer-by.

But that didn't negate the possibility of her own blog, or the fruit she could gain from that. Her concern was the potential caveats she could fall into. Danger was an obvious one and since she didn't technically have a job yet, she didn't have the additional safety nets to fall in to. But also if the government or some high power was involved… She didn't have the money to spare for bail, or the reputation that would make getting jailed work in her favour. Then again, that was a pretty dramatic outcome. It could be just something like a gag order (though she wasn't employed as a journalist so that would affect the company more than her) or tampering of the information or purposeful misleading – and that was something she'd be able to pick up by having a blog of her own.

And it wouldn't take much extra work on her part to set up the blog. Another plus. And she knew a few tricks to hide behind, a few tricks that would alert her if someone was looking for her trial.

Which she supposed all but decided it. And since it did, she didn't ask her cards for their say. Fortunes didn't really work like that.

 **.**

She saw the duel from start to end and she had a good memory for them. She hadn't gotten any telling pictures. Pictures themselves were a plentiful but none of them explained the how or the why and those were the things she really wanted to know. They didn't explain the who either, but that was to be expected. If it was that simple, she wouldn't be on the case.

Unfortunately, it wouldn't do for the first post in a newly created blog. That would be too obvious, leave a trail straight to the duel and to the spectators, to any new face in the crowd and she didn't know how many new faces she had to hide amongst. She could wait to post duels, pretend she's a new face once she's more accustomed to them, once she's a face that's been there several times and no-one will give a second glance to.

But that didn't mean she couldn't post anything at all. She had to start somewhere after all. Pretend her interest had just been peaked, that she was making wild assumptions, that she was eager to see more, learn more, understand more…

And she would build up the alias circling the blogs regarding the Black Rose Witch.

 **.**

Her record at the Underground was steadily improving, and honestly, that took the edge of the pressure and left her more room to worry about her investigation of the Black Rose Witch.

Of course, the officials and bet-collectors didn't know anything about that. They just saw a young lady with bad luck at finding a job but good luck in predicting the outcome of a duel. She insisted it wasn't predictions per say (since she wasn't using her cards or any other magic powers she didn't actually possess), but of course they liked the idea of blaming something mystical for what was simply luck and research and it gave her a bit of a reputation.

Which sadly meant she didn't get many chances for duels because her time became more occupied in giving out "betting advice" and watching the odds change according to how many people decided to listen, and to how much they listened to. She could say more about two duellists she'd seen in multiple duels after all, than someone she was seeing for the first time. And that applied to the Black Rose Witch as well.

 **.**

'So you predict things with your deck?' asked one of the underground staff curiously, watching her shuffle through it. 'Or is your Fortune deck just a representative of your "good fortune".'

She wasn't popular enough as a duellist for them to give her a stage name and underground press, but it seemed the staff toyed with ideas nonetheless. It was somewhat amusing, since she wouldn't necessarily call it "good" fortune. After all, three weeks had passed since she'd come to Neo Domino city and she'd witnessed four of the Black Rose Witch's duels and was no closer to solving the puzzle. Nor had she found any trace of the Black Rose Witch outside duels – unless one counted the cyberspace, and her blog was picking up followers and had the last duel thoroughly exhibited, but was still too young to yield any particularly tasty fruit.

She shrugged at the question. 'Sometimes,' she said. 'Don't always get something out of it.'

'Do you get it right?' the man asked.

Carly considered the question. 'You know how fortunes work, right?' she asked. 'They're vague and can be twisted a lot of ways, so like that it's kind of hard to get them _wrong…_ '

The man snorted. 'Vagueness has its limits too. Like you tell a person they'll become a prince and they wind up a pauper… Unless you have a way with words, I guess.'

She did have a way with words. It came with the territory. 'My fortunes are to do with luck more than riches,' she said, anyhow.

'Luck makes a good trade' the man commented.

Carly blinked. _Is he asking..?_

'Want to set up shop?'

'As a _fortune_ teller?' She'd seen them, with circuses and things that came to visit the village. Dressed in long heavy robes and being altogether mysterious and offering life advice disguised as something else so people paid attention. 'You might be be – ' She cut herself off abruptly. Shed meant to say "better off getting a counsellor" but it occurred to her that it wouldn't be a bad idea after all. And she didn't want the follow up question of "so what is your line of job-seeking?" because she doubted the Underground trusted reporters very much. Not that she was one yet, but the distinction probably mattered less to them than it did to her.

Luckily, the man misunderstood the stutter. 'You'll be fine.' He pat her shoulder consolingly. Surprising action, since it wasn't a very Japanese thing to do. But most of the old customs had died so it wasn't surprising that the less sparkly aspects of society through the old proprieties out the window too…and she didn't care anyhow. 'We'll dress you up and add some makeup and you'll look the part perfectly.'

'Let's skip the makeup,' Carly replied. 'And make sure the outfit's not making me melt inside.'

 **.**

So now her days were quite packed. She spent a couple of hours every evening near the bar selling fortunes, as the man from the Underground put it. She let her cards do the fortunes, but hid them within the layers of cloth with her black gown and instead pretended it was the crystal ball. That was Figaro's idea – Firago who'd sold her the idea initially, and a few bets as well.

And then there was the blog and her research and staking out duels. At the moment she didn't spend much time wandering aimlessly. She could find when and where duels would take place from the blogs and she wasn't quite at the point where she felt she'd exhausted the duelling avenue. She was creating an outline of the deck as well – she had covered less than half the deck so far but it was progress, and she'd found that Black Rose Dragon at least was an exclusive card.

Unfortunately, it had never been used in any official duel so there was no record of its owner. And the other cards were fairly common in plant decks. But combinations were the clincher. If she could tick off multiple cards, that made a culprit more likely. Since it was very rare for two people to have the exact same deck and not be copying each other. And when she exhausted that avenue, she'd have a nice small list of suspects and more time on her hands.

Or that was the plan, anyway. And a perfectly reasonable plan, so there was no reason why it shouldn't work, even if it was slow going.


	5. Chapter 5

**Green and Black Roses  
** _Chapter 5_

Unfortunately, there was no way to cover her face for the mysticism and be nice and refreshed on the inside during the particularly hot evenings, so she dealt with it by having cool drinks under the veil when there were no customers in sight and wiping herself with baby wipes – which she'd discovered back in high school camping ranked quite high up when it came to priority packing. It worked well for the most part, except for those couple of times where a few customers line up and she can't get a private moment between them. So she wound up sweating bullets in those moments and cooling herself off the moment she caught a break.

It was one of those hot evenings when she met a man in blues and greens. His glasses had smaller frames than hers, she noted. That seemed to be the general fashion statement in Neo Domino City, but far less practical in her experience. Of course, hers were doubly practical because the tint hid her eyes and she could stare at people at an angle and, unless they were one of those who could sense a gaze boring into their skulls, they'd be none the wiser.

So the glasses weren't too uncommon. The colours sort of were: she didn't see many people who mixed two light colours like that. But she was no fashion expert. She was just the sort of girl who took note of everything.

And it turned out to be a good thing, because he accepted his fortune, wandered away, and came back the following day with a breakdown she couldn't manage most times with her own fortune.

Fortunately, he was impressed. Otherwise Firago wouldn't have been too pleased with her. Not that he knew about the incident, of course. He said he only cared about the money and the problems, and he didn't foresee any of the latter. Then he'd laughed as though he'd said an impressive joke, but Carly wasn't the sort of girl into puns.

'So what's the secret?' the man with the spectacles asked. He was in the same clothes as yesterday and looking a little out of place in them. _Undercover?_ Carly wondered. Or maybe he worked some place that required a uniform around the shift. Something like a nurse at the hospital or a security guard. But he didn't look to have the right face for either of them. Too soft. Too…expressive. Not that nurses had stoicism written in their job description, but she didn't think it would be an easy job with a constant smile on one's face.

And she figured medical professionals would be a bit more down to earth, relying on science rather than fortunes, especially where their patients were concerned. Though people came in all breeds and she wouldn't be all surprised to find someone completely out of that mould, but for the most part people fit into moulds.

Curiosity didn't seem to suit this man either. Not the sort of curiosity that came with journalism at least, or even with passion. He seemed to want to know her method because he'd been asked, as opposed to being interested himself. And if that was the case, then he was remarkably easy to read, but it could also be that he'd come with that misleading demeanour to take her off track.

After all, there was no reason to be suspicious in this job. It was the investigation of the Black Rose Witch that carried the stakes.

'No secret.' Carly smiled under her veil. It actually was true…once you got past the secrets that made luck or fortune an art. 'It's a gift.'

'It certainly is,' said the man seriously, and Carly blinked. She'd meant it more as a joke and the lay man would have taken it as such. 'Though it's a shame you have to hide your cards with this.' He gestured at the crystal ball with that smile still on his face.

Carly stared. She had her tinted glasses so she felt free to do so until the man commented: 'Naturally, you're surprised.'

'Uhh…' She caught herself quickly, but not too quickly. She wasn't a journalist here after all. Just a fortune teller. 'I feel like we're not quite on the same page.'

'No,' the man agreed. He glanced around – there was no-one else – then leaned closer. 'Many a fortune teller are frauds, but you're the real deal. Though your powers are still young.'

'Power?' Now Carly didn't need to accentuate her confusion: she was feeling plenty of it.

'Psychic power,' the man clarified – which only made sense because of the occasional psychic duellist theory that cropped up concerning the Black Rose Witch. 'Or do you believe in luck?'

'I tell fortunes,' Carly pointed out. 'I deal with luck.'

'You deal with a future that's confirmed,' was the reply. He still smiled. Sort of like a teacher trying to explain something to an exceptionally dull student.

And, of course, Carly was going to milk that for all it was worth.

'Whatever do you mean?' she asked, raising the pitch of her voice just a tad, just to make her sound more nervous than she was. 'I'm just an honest fortune teller.'

Someone rounded the corner of the alley way. The man dropped a paper and some coins on her table as he withdrew. 'Thank you for the fortune,' he said politely, with that same smile.

Carly slipped the paper into her robe. She'd have to take a look at that once she was at home. 'Thank you for your business,' she said, pushing some excitement into her voice and withdrawing the wariness. Wariness wasn't a good selling point for something like fortune telling after all.

 **.**

The address turned out to coincide with where the next public duel of the Black Rose Witch would occur, which put her in something of a conundrum. Because she had no idea how the man had known it was her cards and not her crystal ball that did the fortunes, but having some sort of X-ray vision (there were fancy stuff with glasses nowadays, but nothing she'd be able to afford in the near future) or spying (though she didn't think she'd slipped up in the fortune business despite Fortune Slip), so she couldn't risk going with her camera in case she gave away something about her other reason for being on the job.

Though if he had X-ray vision and had been at the previous duels, he might be able to pick her out from a crowd. Hopefully not though, because a disguise wouldn't do a whole lot of good and her black hair definitely showed: a few locks perpetually stayed out of the hood and veil.

In the end, she simply had to count the fact that she didn't post a play by play of every duel she attended a strategy that had paid off, and dig up the information later on. Because the note said to meet under the clock. They could watch the duel, or vanish under the cover of the duel as well. The note didn't say: just the time and the place.

And the only thing Carly didn't think twice about was showing up there.

 **.**

She wore the singlet and tights she usually wore under the fortune telling robe, with a cardigan thrown over the top. It was a windy day: not particularly cold on the whole but the wind itself was chilled. Typical spring weather, in the end. Sometimes unbearably hot, and cold at other times. Layers were a blessing then and she only owned one extraordinarily thick jacket, because that was all she needed.

And she waited under the clock. People gathered, because people were still fascinated about the Black Rose Witch, despite all the bad press. There was something about the mystery – or people just enjoyed seeing the dark face of duelling when they weren't the ones involved. In a sense, it was the same in the Underground. Many a rich and respectable person came to place their bets but only the poorer ones duelled. She waited and she watched people collect. There were even children watching: some slightly scared, others fascinated. Some were even in uniform, and it was just after two. Those kids were skipping school.

And there was the man who'd left the note for her. 'You came.' He sounded somewhat relieved.

'I was curious,' Carly replied. 'And maybe a little creeped out.' Not really, but curiosity killed the cat and she needed some other state of mind to buffer it – externally at least.

'My apologies,' the man said politely. As she'd suspected, he was still smiling – when he came up to her, and when he spoke as well. There was a commotion where the crowd was standing. Carly assumed that meant the Black Rose Witch had shown up. But it also looked like she wouldn't be bearing witness to that duel, being elsewhere engaged as she was. And it might bear no fruit at all, but it was a suspicious coincidence that made her more curious…and just the slightest bit weary. 'I was curious myself, when I heard about your fortunes. Curious and concerned.'

'Concerned?' That would have been a surprise, though Carly expected it more meant "concerned about the consequences to me or somebody else important" as opposed to concerned about _her_.

Except his next statement implied the latter and, so to speak, threw her for a loop.

'Psychics like us tend to get a lot of short sticks in life.'


	6. Chapter 6

**Green and Black Roses**  
 _Chapter 6_

'Psychics?' Carly repeated. 'Like, honest to goodness power?'

The man smiled. 'Despite your own power, you don't seem to be convinced.'

Well, Carly couldn't exactly say "reporter's intuition"…but there was nothing wrong with the second half of that phrase. 'It's just intuition. I've got a good eye for this stuff.'

'So do I,' the man replied. 'Though I have more knowledge and resources at my disposal. Shall I show you?'

'Show me what?' She was curious, and a tad wary. They were out of sight and hearing, after all. Tucked away in a corner alley where anything could happen because they needed the privacy to talk freely like they were doing now. And maybe the man had picked that location to show her something too. Or do something…but what reporter wouldn't take a risk? In any case, people tended to underestimate her, and she had a few tricks up her sleeve for getting out of messy situations.

Granted, she couldn't use the car as one of them, but oh well. She still had her backpack, which included her laundry wire, kitchen knife and duel disk as potential weapons. And she'd seen a kid stab another's arms with pencils so there was that too. And, of course, her precious camera. Her handheld voice recorder was in her jeans pocket, easy to activate subtly to get hold of a scoop that might otherwise slip away like maple syrup.

But the man didn't seem threatening at the moment. He wasn't carrying much, either. Just what would fit into his pockets and his duel disk. An ordinary disk, by the looks of things. Some people had custom made ones and those were, occasionally, more capable than they appeared. But the standard Kaiba Corp ones didn't have anything funny hidden in them, and there weren't any cracks in the exterior that suggested someone had played around with the mechanism. Those cracks were actually very easy to see, once you knew to look for them. Not without her glasses, perhaps. But she was wearing them and close enough to the disk to be confident they weren't there.

And the man clipping said duel disk to his arm was the perfect time to inspect it from all angles without moving, too. But why was he strapping it on was the question. 'You're showing me a hologram?'

'Something more tangible,' the man smiled, though Carly was still expecting a hologram when he slapped a card down in the monster zone.

It wasn't a hologram. The golden ladybug – named Golden Ladybug, funnily enough – was completely solid. It obscured anything behind itself, hovering in the air like any other tangible object – and when Carly reached out a curious hand to touch it, she felt moist scales like from a snail in a garden.

'How?' she gaped. Sight could be fooled, and if sight was gone, then touch could be fooled because it wasn't always so sensitive to differentiate things from one another without help, but she had her sight perfectly intact – or rather, perfectly in tact with glasses on, and there was nothing wrong with her fingers either, as far as she knew. Which meant the hologram wasn't a hologram, but real. And it definitely hadn't been there before.

'All psychic duellists can do it,' the man explained. 'If they know how,' he corrected himself, as though remembering he'd called her a psychic duellist and she most certainly could _not_ summon out monsters like that. 'There are reports of such things. The Egyptian Gods are a bit of an extreme situation – any duellist could summon them out, they scream so loudly from their cards – but have you ever heard of a duellist named Yuki Juudai?'

'Sort of.' Carly had heard about everything at some point or other, but historical figures didn't get mentioned much in modern news. 'He's a hot topic amongst Academia students…and a few of their graduates, too.'

'It's a shame.' The man sounded like he was agreeing with something, but she hadn't said anything that worthwhile. 'Yuki Juudai could summon monsters. He's one of the most famous examples, largely because of how he defeated Darkness when every other duellist in the world had been consumed.'

'Yeah, I know the story.' Sometimes, it sounded like a fairytale. Especially with so much information about the boy missing. His school records had a lot of things erased. Huge gaps in school work that were never really explained. Medical records that were blanked out. And then, after graduation, not a mention of him again except through anecdotes. They say he perished ridding the world of Darkness, but there was a photo taken at a later date that showed a boy that looked like his last confirmed photo, and his Neos. There was also a dragon she'd never come across again…and since digging into old legends wasn't really the job of a reporter, she'd let the matter be. Except curiosity liked to rear its head. 'You wouldn't happen to know what the dragon was, would you?'

The man looked confused. The tables were suddenly turned and Carly rummaged through her bag to pull out her data pad. 'This photo,' she said, pulling up an article about the destruction of a villa in Venice. 'See.' She tapped the boy she was fairly sure was Yuuki Juudai – but the quality of the photo was atrocious. 'That would be Yuuki Juudai, and there's his famous one of a kind Neos, but this dragon I've never been able to find records of.'

The man took a close look at the photo. 'My specialty is healing,' he said apologetically. 'And I never went to the Academia. I'm afraid I have no idea.'

'Right. Different types of psychic powers.' Carly shook her head. This was a bit much to wrap her head around. 'But you did just summon that ladybug – ' It bumped her bag. 'Uh, how long will it stay out?'

'Depends,' the man shrugged. He took the card off the disk and it vanished. 'Either when I take it off, it's attacked by a stronger monster or I run out of energy.' He did have beads of sweat shining on his brow. 'I'm not very good at it.' But he grinned anyway. 'Convinced now?'

'Guess so.' Until she figured out another possible way for monsters to come to life. 'Hey, are they sentiment? What happens if they get destroyed when they're real. Has this got anything to do with people who can see monster spirits –'

'Oh, you know about that too?' The man sounded surprised. Carly stopped her questions, realising she was sounding like a reporter again. Too curious for her own good. 'Seeing monster spirits not physically summoned is another type of psychic power. Some people, like Yuuki Juudai, have it secondary to other powers.'

'And the Black Rose Witch?' Carly ventured. Risky question, but here was a source of information that might slip away, or become more tangled.

'Psychic too,' he nodded. 'But not the bad sort, really. People like us – well, we're sort of the black sheep rejected by the rest of the world.'

And the sadness in his voice, more than anything else, struck her.

'You've been lucky at the moment,' the man continued. 'They think your fortune telling is just good bluffing and luck and it hasn't come back to bite you yet. But, sooner or later, they'll work out you're the real deal. The way you're never wrong.'

'I'm often wrong,' she snorted.

'Wrong in interpretation,' said the man, 'not in essence itself. In other words, what you see or pick up from your cards is right. It's just how you translate it that needs some work.'

'Well,' she hedged. The conversation seemed to be moving somewhere else now, and she thought she knew where. And she wasn't sure if it was a good idea or not. 'It's not exactly a skill I plan to hone.'

'And when greedy men start to bother you, asking for the perfect bets, the futures they're trying to attain out of pure greed – then what? The underground won't hide you forever. They'll follow you. They'll try and snatch you away so others can't exploit you. And they won't be happy with the truth. Nor with lies if something takes an ugly twist in the aftermath.'

'I know the type.' The type she dreamed about blackmailing, honestly. But this sounded like the opposite situation. 'It's okay; I've been on my own for a while. I can handle myself.'

'Sleeping out in the back of your car because you haven't managed to secure a bed?' The man raised his eyebrow. Carly stiffened. This should be _her_ job. Irony really was cruel. 'Making do with packet food because the stove in your apartment was busted before you even rented it, and you can't pay for the repairs even working like you are because you've got your hands tied with electricity and water and petrol for your car. Trying to get a story that could get you killed because the real reporters don't want to risk their lives over it, and you won't get the job even if you do crack the case because the Public Security Bureau will just hush you up –'

'That's not true,' Carly snapped. 'You said my fortunes are always right and I know things are going to go right with this case –' Because there was no point denying the rest of it.

'But not by pursuing it to the end,' interrupted the man. 'I also said you misinterpret them. Your salvation will come. By your hunt for the Black Rose Witch leading you to us, to the Arcadia Movement.'

Arcadia. She'd seen that name before. With psychic duellists. Some sort of support group, calling anyone who had special powers, calling anyone shunned because of it. Back street words, but she was good at finding things like that and she had pursued that line of thought when hunting the Black Rose Witch…

But she hadn't imagined that this was the way she'd come into contact with them.

'And you are..?'

The man blinked, before bowing hurriedly. 'Oh, my rudeness. I'm Okita.'

'Carly Nagisa.' Though it looked like he already knew it. In addition to all that personal stuff.

He shrugged. 'I apologise,' he said, 'but your emotions are quite strong on the matter, so it wasn't very difficult to read them.'

'Right.' She raised a hand to her brow. She was starting to get a headache, she thought. 'My emotions. So you heal hearts?'

'Physical wounds,' Okita corrected. 'Healing hearts involves talking, and most people aren't happy to talk to people who know their emotions so well.'

'Right.' She rubbed her temples. 'I need some time to think. Sorry to do this, but can we meet some other time?'

'Sure.' She wasn't sure if she sounded relieved or disappointed, but he turned away with a wave. 'Just find the Black Rose Witch if you want to come to the Arcadia Movement.'

Couldn't he have just left an address like last time?


End file.
